Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services

Two-factor authentication, also known as 2-step verification, provides additional security for your online accounts. Even if someone discovers your password, they’ll need a special one-time code to log in after you enable two-factor authentication on these services.

Notably absent from this list are banks and other financial institutions. It’s a shame that you can use two-factor authentication to protect your in-game currency in an MMORPG, but not the real money in your bank account.

Facebook

Facebook’s “Login Approvals” feature requires you to enter a code whenever you login from an unrecognized computer. The code will be sent to your mobile phone via SMS. Facebook offers instructions on setting this up.

LastPass

LastPass offers a number of different two-factor authentication options to secure your account. You can use the Google Authenticator app, which is free for everyone. LastPass Premium subscribers can purchase a physical YubiKey token and use other options to secure their password database.

Yahoo! Mail

Yahoo! offers two-step verification, but only for your email. When using this feature, you’ll have to enter a code sent to your mobile phone via SMS or enter the answer to your account security question to log in. Make sure your account security question is unguessable if you use this feature – as usual, security questions are a weak link. Read more about enabling and using Yahoo!’s “Second sign-in verification” feature here.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon offers multi-factor authentication via its AWS Virtual MFA app or Google Authenticator. This is only for AWS services, such as Amazon S3’s storage service, not for the average consumer’s Amazon account. Get started with it here.

Many other MMORPGs also offer two-factor authentication. For example, if you play Guild Wars 2 or Star Wars: The Old Republic, each offers two-factor authentication systems for you. Read more about enabling it for Guild Wars 2 or SWTOR.

Your Linux Server

You can implement two-factor authentication on your own Linux server to increase its security. We’ve covered using the Google Authenticator PAM module to add two-step authentication to your SSH server. All the number-crunching happens on your own server; no phoning home required.

Do you use two-factor authentication for another service? Leave a comment and let us know about it.